N.Y. Times seeks correction from New Yorker over Abramson story

5/15/14 11:25 PM EDT

Updated at 9:50 a.m. on May 16.

New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said late Thursday night that she was misquoted in a New Yorker article about the reasons for Jill Abramson's termination from the paper. Murphy is now seeking a correction from The New Yorker.

In what seemed like a stunning about-face, Murphy was portrayed by The New Yorker's Ken Auletta as having "conceded" that Abramson's decision to hire lawyers to protest her salary "was a contributing factor” to her termination, because “it was part of a pattern."

But in an email to POLITICO late Thursday night, Murphy said, "I never 'conceded' that the issue of a lawyer being brought in to discuss pay was a contributing factor to her firing. It was not, and I never said it was."

Murphy says she was instead conceding that Abramson's decision to hire a lawyer was seen as a hostile act, and part of a pattern of frustration. She says she never stated that it was a factor in the decision to fire her. Instead, the decision resulted from issues related to newsroom management, as the Times has previously stated.

On Friday morning, Murphy sent an email to Auletta requesting that he correct his story. Auletta added the following update shortly after 9:00 a.m.:

(Update: Murphy wrote to me after this post went up to dispute this. Her quote is accurate and in context, as I’ve confirmed in my notes. However, she now e-mails: “I said to you that the issue of bringing a lawyer in was part of a pattern that caused frustration. I NEVER said that it was part of a pattern that led to her firing because that is just not true.”)

Reached for comment, Auletta and a New Yorker spokesrson referred POLITICO to the update.

Auletta's report revealed that Abramson was paid substantially less than her male counterparts -- sometimes by as much as $100,000 -- for the last 14 years of her career. Auletta's reporting also revealed that Abramson had recently hired a lawyer to address her salary concerns, which he states was one of many factors that led to the Times' decision to fire Abramson.

In previous statements, Murphy and Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger have said that Abramson's "total compensation" was not less or not "significantly less" than that of her male predecessor, Bill Keller. Seeking to explain that remark, Murphy reportedly cautioned Auletta to consider not just salary but "bonuses, stock grants, and other long-term incentives."